The present invention generally relates to a method for converting data field lengths in computer program files. More particularly, the present invention relates to a computer-implemented method for converting data field lengths in computer program files and/or databases for compliance with the next century.
Presently, many businesses rely upon computer programs that generate and utilize date-specific data. Such computer programs include, for example, programs for maintaining a database of insurance claims and dates on which such claims were made, and software used for tracking telephone calls in computing billing records. Because most of these computer programs have only used data fields having two characters reserved for the year (i.e., Dec. 31, 1995), these computer programs assume that the year occurs in the twentieth century and thus, will not be able to distinguish between dates occurring in this century and those occurring in the next century. For example, if the computer program generates or accesses an invoice due date of "Jan. 1, 2000," the program will assume a due date of Jan. 1, 1900, even though Jan. 1, 2000, was intended, and will incorrectly designate the account as overdue and compute interest due on the account starting from the Jan. 1, 1900, date. Thus, it may be crucial for businesses to modify their existing computer programs for compliance with the next century.
Although these computer programs could be modified manually by going through each line of code of the programs and each segment of data in a database to make the necessary changes for compliance with the next century, such manual revision is tedious, very time consuming, and costly and is subject to human error. Given the number of computer programs presently used by businesses and the number of lines of code in such programs, there exists a need for an automated process for making necessary modifications in a computer program for compliance with the next century.
The assignee of the present invention has developed a set of computer-implemented tools for automatically converting the field length of data relating to dates. These tools are used to convert all of one's non-compliant program files and data files into files that are century compliant. However, it may not always be desirable to convert all of one's non-compliant program files and/or data files. For example, one may wish to use a new, upgraded, or converted century compliant program to operate on non-compliant data without having to permanently convert the data. Conversely, one may not want to permanently convert a non-compliant program to work with compliant data. Therefore, there exists a need for a bridging tool set that may be called from within a compliant or non-compliant client program in order to allow non-compliant program codes or data fields to be used with compliant program codes or data fields without requiring the non-compliant components to be permanently converted.